Information Technology

The right technology is often the differentiating factor in giving a financial services company the edge over its competitors. It can also, in the long run, help the organisation save money. Not surprisingly, therefore, firms in the financial sector are among the biggest spenders on IT recruitment.

In an investment bank, the really big user of technology is the trading floor and everything related to it. Whether it's a question of actually buying and selling financial products electronically, processing them through smart-order routing systems, or communicating to ensure that trades go through smoothly in the smallest amount of time possible, multimillion dollar technology projects are crucial to successful operations.

Within financial services, IT careers tend to fall into five camps - development, business analysis, project management, infrastructure and technical support.

Developers are at the coalface of the IT department. Although some of the job will involve developing new systems in-house, offering opportunities for developers using Java or other coding languages, banks often purchase software off the shelf from third-party vendors. A developer's job will therefore include tailoring the software to suit the institution's particular needs or integrate it into existing systems.

Within flow products like equities or FX, developers aim 'low latency' or reducing the amount of time it takes to both execute and process a trade.

Business analysts act as the liaison between the IT department and the business side of the organisation, investigating how technology can be used to improve the bank's competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, project managers will take the reins of the new venture once it's been given the go-ahead. Project management roles are strategic and involve planning, structuring and eventual completion of the projects. Project managers work with a team of developers, liaise with third-party vendors and are answerable to the business should plans go awry.

Those in technical support jobs solve problems when they arise on the trading floor. Infrastructure roles deal with the nuts and bolts of IT - everything from servers, to operating systems to databases.

This section also includes IT jobs working for third-party vendors, which specialise in providing software for a particular sector.